1. Field
The present disclosure relates to a method and an apparatus for dynamically controlling HVAC (Heating, Ventilating, and Air-Conditioning) for a vehicle based on discomfort index, and more particularly, a method and an apparatus for calculating discomfort index based on a user's body reaction measured by a sensor and dynamically controlling the HVAC for the vehicle based on the measured discomfort index.
2. Description of the Related Art
An HVAC system is a device for controlling the interior air temperature of an automotive vehicle in a way in which cold air is obtained making use of a heat exchanged air by using a power generating apparatus of the vehicle to compress refrigerant, condensing the refrigerant by external air, rapidly expanding and evaporating the condensed refrigerant to reduce temperature by absorbing external heat when the refrigerant is evaporated, and generating the heat exchanged air by air flow on the surface of an evaporator, and in which warm air is obtained by air flow on the surface of a heater which uses cooling water warmed by heat obtained by the combustion of fuel in the power generating device.
Such HVAC system provides a comfortable indoor environment by performing cooling, heating and ventilation of indoor air by convection to outside air or indoor air. Recently, a HVAC system having automatic temperature control (FATC: Full Auto Temperature Control) function has been utilized. The HVAC system having the automatic temperature control function can always maintain indoor temperature at a temperature set by a user regardless of external temperature change by adjusting air-conditioning in the system.
Korean Published Patent Publication No. 1997-0069434 discloses the contents to automatically control the indoor temperature of a vehicle by sensing the temperature of driver's hands gripping a steering wheel as an automatic temperature adjustment measures.
Korean Published Patent Publication No. 2006-0018600 discloses a HVAC system of vehicle and an operating method thereof. The system receives information such as indoor temperature, wind speed, wind direction, air outlet mode, inside/outside equipment selection, operating possibility of air conditioner, etc., stores the received information as a comfortable data, and automatically operates an aft conditioning and ventilation equipment based on the stored comfortable data when selecting a comfortable button.